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Tesla coil design help please?

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LAN_403

Killa-X

Fri Feb 06 2009, 12:09AM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

This will be my first attempt at a tesla. So I'm looking for a SMALL one, not a monster 2-3 ft beast. I'm using an ignition coil, soon DC convert on it, and I never made a tesla coil before...

What size wire might be the best to get, and about how long? My guess is that I'll be winding it around a 2 inch PVC pipe. But about how much do I need to do this?

Any other suggestions would be nice! Thanks!

Plasma Lover

Fri Feb 06 2009, 12:30AM

Registered Member #1911 Joined: Mon Jan 05 2009, 06:30PM
Location: Salem, Oregon, USA
Posts: 165

For the secondary, I recommend 32-36AWG wire, which is extremely thin, if you're wanting to make a 2" diameter secondary. For this reason, I recommend that you wind a four-inch secondary with 26-30AWG wire, which is MUCH larger. What I advise is that you wind a 4" secondary. That way, you can use it over and over with increasingly larger tests. With this secondary, there is very little limit on what you can put through it (especially on a low budget, which I'm guessing you have, since you're using ignition coils). For your primary capacitor, I recommend 942CDE capacitors. They're made by Cornell Dubilier, and can be quite expensive, but they're worth it.

If you have any more questions, just ask.

Edit - If you need to know how far you'll need to wind, you can just multiply the diameter of the form by four and that will give you, on medium-sized forms, a good idea of how much winding you'll need to do.

You can find out how much wire you'll need yourself by downloading a program called TeslaMap. It's free and is a great utility for the price.

^_^

Killa-X

Fri Feb 06 2009, 12:51AM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

Comparing to the program, 28AWG on a 2Inch PVC pipe, coiled 4 inches high, will require 291.7 turns, and about 152.6 ft of wire.

Using such a coil and power supply, could i expect much out of it at all?

Also, im just guessing 2 inches. I have no clue whats BEST for an ignition coil, and 1/4, 1, and 2 inch PVC is all I have.

Herr Zapp

Fri Feb 06 2009, 02:01AM

Registered Member #480 Joined: Thu Jul 06 2006, 07:08PM
Location: North America
Posts: 644

Killa -

You misunderstood PlasmaLover's response.

You will wind a secondary on a 3 or 4 inch diameter PVC pipe coilform, using # 26 or #28 AWG wire. You will want somewhere around 1,000 turns total. If you use #28 AWG wire, your secondary will be approx. 16 inches long, have approx. 1200 "turns" of wire, and will use approx 1200 feet of wire.

It sound like you may not really know much about Tesla coils, how they operate, or how to design one. To have much chance for actually building a Tesla coil and getting it to operate, I suggest that you do some studying before you try to start building anything.

For a "primer" on Tesla coil design, look here:

For a very simple, very basic Tesla coil design program, download Wintesla 5.0 from here:

To get some very necessary understanding of how a Tesla coil operates, read and understand the section on spark-gap Tesla coils presented here:

Without getting some basic understanding of how a Tesla coil operates, your chances of actually building a functioning Tesla coil are rather slim ...

Regards,
Herr Zapp

Plasma Lover

Fri Feb 06 2009, 06:08PM

Registered Member #1911 Joined: Mon Jan 05 2009, 06:30PM
Location: Salem, Oregon, USA
Posts: 165

Herr Zapp wrote ...

Killa -

You misunderstood PlasmaLover's response.

You will wind a secondary on a 3 or 4 inch diameter PVC pipe coilform, using # 26 or #28 AWG wire. You will want somewhere around 1,000 turns total. If you use #28 AWG wire, your secondary will be approx. 16 inches long, have approx. 1200 "turns" of wire, and will use approx 1200 feet of wire.

Without getting some basic understanding of how a Tesla coil operates, your chances of actually building a functioning Tesla coil are rather slim ...

Regards,
Herr Zapp

Well, the first Tesla coil i built was based on somebody else's primary circuit (actually built by somebody else) and the second coil i built failed completely, with no streamer output. Please, though, people, stay on topic. I'm not looking to make the subject about me. As a matter of fact, I'll start a new topic for it.

Killa-X, i'd be happy to help you. What more do you need to know, and what materials do you have? You have a transformer, you have wire, i'm guessing, for the primary circuit. I'm guessing you have solder and a soldering iron.

You need capacitors, wire, secondary form material, primary coil wire/tube (I recommend wire), etc.

Do you have any idea what you want to do, design-wise? We can't really tell you much unless you tell us what it is that you want.

Thank you,

Christopher

Killa-X

Wed Feb 11 2009, 02:16AM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

PlasmaLover, please don't answer this, as we talked about this already in msn!

I was told if I run an ignition coil and DC it, it wouldn't really hvae the power to do a 4X16 inch tesla. My friend recommended I do 2X6 inch, with 36 awg wire. This comes out to 1070.4 coils of wire.

Do you guys think it would be good since we're talking about the 1000 coil range..He then eventually went down to making a 2X22 inch tesla on an ignition coil which worked good..

Mads Barnkob

Wed Feb 11 2009, 09:28AM

Registered Member #1403 Joined: Tue Mar 18 2008, 06:05PM
Location: Denmark, Odense C
Posts: 1968

Most of your questions about windings are not really useful, read some design guides where all the best practises are written down, the experience from many years of experiments by other coilers.

Deepfriedneon got a excelent beginners guide you should read:

He also got some good java calculators.

Combine it with using JAVATC to simulate your tesla coil:

These are tools that can seem hard to use for a beginner, but read all the descriptions, click the ? signs, its valueable tool when building / tuning a tesla coil.

There is more to be found on this forum indeed, but also on the pupman.com list.

KLH

Wed Feb 11 2009, 06:31PM

Registered Member #1819 Joined: Thu Nov 20 2008, 04:05PM
Location:
Posts: 137

Just a random piece of advice (which you might know already)...

When winding your coils with the thin wire, wear gloves. When the coil gets hot, any oils from your skin on the coil can adversly affect the insulation. Depending on what kind of gloves you choose, it can help keep the wire from slipping out of your hands.

Plasma Lover

Wed Feb 11 2009, 07:13PM

Registered Member #1911 Joined: Mon Jan 05 2009, 06:30PM
Location: Salem, Oregon, USA
Posts: 165

Wearing gloves while winding will, also, keep your fingers from getting cut by the wire. Over long periods of time, the wire will wear away at your skin.

Arcstarter

Wed Feb 11 2009, 09:28PM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

I would not use 2x22, that is much too long, which will reduce power transfer, it will increase resistance, it will look weird perhaps (just a though, i like coils to look a certain way), and stout coils have been proven to work better in most tank set-ups. For 2 inch coils, i personally would go with 11 inches, because it looks right, and gives a good amount of windings with a correct thickness wire, and takes less length.

Do you live in 120v 60hz land? If so, i have a 6kv 30ma nst i could sell to you for cheap. That could get a theoretical spark length of 22 inches fully tuned and with a good capacitor and good quenching. It would be perfect for a 2 inch coil. If you are somewhat interested, drop me a PM and i can measure dimensions or anything else you might need.

Well, i could perhaps help with all the coil dimensions and such.

If i was in your position, i would go with a 2 inch diameter form, and 11 inches of minding with 30 gauge wire.

the 30 gauge wire there is a great deal, and you could wind 5-6 of those coils with 17USD worth of wire! And all of that wire is double build, and upon request, you can choose what insulation color you want! Be the first to have a blue coil. That would get you about 950 turns theoretically, and about 919khz secondary resonant frequency with no topload.

The primary could be some thick solid copper wire. This kind of copper wire can be found in two or three conductor wire, for wiring up outlets or high current appliances such as ovens or heaters. Then you just cut the outer jacket in half, in between the wires with a sharp blade, and then cut the wire coating off. Around 12-14 gauge would be good enough for such a coil. The spacing between each winding could be about half an inch or so.

With a 6kv 30ma NST the correct LTR (larger than resonant) tank capacitor would be around 18nf. ALWAYS use LTR! If you use resonant size, the transformer or capacitors could be killed by resonant rise.

Those CDE capacitors offer a very high quality pulse rated capacitor, that would be perfect. For a 6kv 30ma NST, 8 in series would be perfect. It would be 18.75nf and 16kvdc, which would be about perfect voltage, as you must divide by two for ac voltage, and it would give you a nice safety margin.

The spark gap could be something like a few copper tubes lined up with a strong fan blowing onto them. you could also use carriage bolts, but they would probably not work as well.

Grounding should be a long metal pipe or stake pounded into the ground, and before running wetting the ground with water would reduce resistance and allow for a better ground. This should be attached straight to the base of the secondary. If you wanted a discharge wand, it could be a long plastic pole (depending on spark length, a foot or two would be good enough) with a nail or other metal object, connected with a long enough wire to the secondary base/rf ground. Be sure it is attached securely, as if it fell off while drawing arcs it might spark along the surface and hit ya.

For protecting the transformer you use, you should always have a safety spark gap. For NST's, a low pass terry filter would be a good idea.

<-- is a terry filter schematic. Input side filtering is also not necessary, but suggested. This could be a RFI filter like this

or an RFI filter from a microwave oven, which is in some microwaves. Some include a fuse holder on the board, which is very convenient. You can make your own with a few of the right capacitors and an inductor. You can have a fuse in series with the primary input on your power source, but is not absolutely necessary.

Just some suggestions to make a really great tesla coil, but this approach will require money.
Let me know if you have questions or are interested in my NST.

For a very cheap tesla coil, but not a great performer, you can use a flyback/ignition coil. Look above for primary/secondary/spark gap.

If you use an ignition coil, you should rectify with a large string of 50 or more 1n4007 diodes, or other high voltage diodes. The driver i would use is a half bridge driver, using a tl494 or other PWM ic.

A good capacitor would be the transparency capacitors, as they are cheap to make and simple.

For flyback transformer tesla coils, i would use the ZVS flyback driver and the same transparency capacitors. I would pick the ZVS driver because there is little heat, it is efficient, powerful, simple, and cheap. If you need help with the ZVS let me know.

Hopefully something from what i said will help. If not, let me know, i can help.

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